Patterns
by ardavenport
Summary: Years after her time as the Doctor's companion, Sarah Jane Smith encounters an old adversary of the Time Lord. Along with two strange elementals, Sapphire and Steel, who are not friendly to the Doctor either. Technically a Who crossover, but with a show too obscure to be listed on this site.
1. Chapter 1

**PATTERNS**

by ardavenport

* * *

**~~O~~O~~ Part 1**

* * *

"And now, ladies and gentlemen, we are entering the library." The tour guide ushered her throng into a book-lined room. Dutifully viewing the room, they wandered within the confines of the roped off areas before reforming into an attentive group for their guide. She expounded upon the literary tastes of the house's previous owners while the eyes of her audience admired the room's high-ceilinged splendor. When she was was done they all filed out to the next room. A man and a woman quietly materialized at the end of the line of stragglers and followed the others out.

The group strolled through a wood-paneled study.

/Sapphire, we don't need to be here. We should be looking at the house./ The man told his companion without speaking aloud. He was blond, appeared to be of an indeterminate age between thirty and fifty-five and wore a plain dark gray suit with a black tie and shoes.

/We are looking at the house. Besides, whatever's wrong here has something to do with people. Many people./ She, also blonde and pretty, looked to be in her thirties and wore a simple blue dress and shoes that matched her eyes.

/These people?/ The tour entered a hallway leading to an extension of the house.

/No. At least, not all of them./

The tour group continued down the hall and stopped in a domed, circular almost-room. Gesturing toward the end of the hallway ahead, the guide described new additions to the building; a conservatory, guest rooms and modern plumbing. The men and women admired the windows exposing the gardens outside on either side of the hall and the beautiful circular mosaic on the floor they crossed when they passed under the sky-lighted dome. Further down, the walls were hung with paintings and statues occupied alcoves between them.

/Steel, wait./

Sapphire's companion stopped in mid-stride. A short, balding man shouldered his way past him.

/What is it?/ he asked.

/That woman, there./

/Where?/

/Over there on your left./ Steel saw a brown-haired woman wearing a maroon skirt and jacket. She paused, as if dizzy; the floor seemed fuzzy under her.

Sapphire saw the colors of the mosaic floor stretching up over the woman's feet, like mud trying to suck her in. She stumbled, but continued on. Once off the mosaic she glanced back, concerned, but she didn't stop.

/It's here Steel. Did you see it?/

/Yes. Is it the floor or the woman?/

/The floor./

/That's where Time has weaken then. What about her?/

/She's part of it somehow./ Sapphire's gazed followed the tour group. Most of them had crossed the circular part of the hall, the woman in maroon among them. Steel took a step forward.

/No, Steel. Walk around the edges. Don't step on the pattern./

Carefully they walked on the polished gray marble surrounding the central pattern. A few people glanced their way.

/Act naturally, Steel. You look as if you're stalking a lion. Pretend to admire the view./

They arrived at the far doorway and moved on.

The tour continued with no more mishaps.

"And that concludes our tour of Mayford House. We do hope you've enjoyed this special press tour. We will be opening for the public in exactly two weeks, on the 8th." The guide, her eyes peeking over her horn rimmed glasses, invitingly smiled through thin red lips at her guests. The effect was almost frightening. "And now, you may meet the curator and staff of Mayford House out on the lawn. Refreshments will be served."

On the lawn the crowd enjoyed tea and punch and an assortment of sweets and hors d'oeuvres. A string quartet played appropriate background music. Sapphire and Steel caught up with the woman in the maroon skirt at the the refreshment table where she conversed with a slender, brown-haired woman in a sweater and a Flowered dress.

"Oh, you're from Croydon!" the flowered-dress woman exclaimed.

"South Croydon," the maroon-skirt womand corrected.

"And you write for the newspapers? That must be very exciting. I only work in a bookstore in Rickmansworth."

The maroon-skirt woman nodded politely and sensing the beginnings of a boring conversation excused herself, politely turned away.

"Hello." Sapphire smiled brightly at the smaller woman, who started when she suddenly found herself facing two new people. "Quite a party, isn't it?"

"Oh, yes, it is." She looked from one to the other. "I'm Sarah Jane Smith, Sunday Parade." She politely extended her hand. Sapphire took it.

/Human. 155 cm.; 58 kilograms . . . /

"My name is Sapphire. This is Mr. Steel. We're with Stately Homes magazine."

/ . . . . intelligent, but worried. She knows something happened back there in the hallway. Age . . . . /

"Oh really? I've never heard of it."

"It's new."

"Are you a regular writer for Sunday Parade?" Steel asked.

"For awhile at least, but I usually do freelance work.", she answered.

/Steel, she was born on May 16, 1956./

/So?/

"And you're planning on doing a story on this place?"

/She's 30.2 years old./

"Yes, if it sells," she told him, wondering if his questions were leading to anything.

/That's impossible, she's . . . . /

/ . . . . nearly twenty-two months older than she's supposed to be./

"I'm sure it will," Sapphire reassured.

"Ah, Miss Smith!" Their host, the curator of Mayford House, Mr Rosini, approached smiling. "I've been looking forward to meeting you." Sarah quickly reclaimed her hand from Sapphire and turned to the Italian.

"I hope you don't mind if I tear you away from your friends here, but I do so much want to have a little chat with you." He led her away.

/Is she of this time, Sapphire?/

/Yes, she does belong here./

/Then why does she have those extra twenty-two months?/

/I don't know./

/Does it have anything to do with what happened in that hallway?/

/I'm not sure./

/Then we'll need to find out./

/We can't go searching the house openly. There are too many people about. We'll have to slip away casually./ Sapphire helped herself to some tea and cookies. /Would you like some?/

"No." Steel spoke aloud, reigning in his impatience and scannin the crowd. "'Mister Steel?'" he quoted disdainfully.

"Well, people are used to surnames in this time." She sipped her tea. They began to stroll in the general direction of the house.

"You don't have one."

"Of course not. I don't need one."

/Steel./ Sapphire called from where she was observing the kitchen staff.

/What is it?/ Steel paused in his investigation of some of the upper rooms that hadn't been included in the tour.

/The reception is breaking up. The guests are leaving./

/Good./

/Sarah Jane Smith isn't among them./

/Is she still in the house?

/Yes./

/Leave her for now, then. Have you found anything?/

No answer.

/Sapphire? What is it?/

/I thought I saw someone watching me./

/You thought you saw someone? Aren't you sure?/

/I don't know. I only caught a glimpse, a person standing, looking at me. But when I turned there wasn't anyone there. I can't understand how anyone could move so quickly./ Another pause. /The staff, they're gone now. There's no one in the kitchen area or any of the store rooms./

/You said the party was breaking up./ Steel's mental voice was impatient.

/Yes. But the staff has disappeared. They haven't finished cleaning up./

/Where did they go?/

/Downstairs./

/Look into it. See what they're up to. I'll finish up here./

/Have you found anything?/

/No./

Sapphire looked over her shoulder back to the shadows where she thought she had seen movement. She quietly slipped out of the pantry.

"And we have a most special exhibit in the cellar." Rosini ushered Sarah down the narrow but well lit concrete steps. She ran a hand along the gray wall in the absence of a guard rail "It was brought up, piece by piece, from Italy in 1962 by Robert Broadstreet, the banker who purchased this house from Lord Hayford, who needed to pay off his rather substantial gambling debts." At the bottom of the stairs he held e wooden door open for her. Sarah peered into a less well lit basement area suspiciously and then looked appraisingly at the man holding the door.

"Why wasn't it in the tour?"

"Ah," Rosini nodded, a little embarrassed. "We were rather hoping for a dramatic debut for this part, and we thought that with your connections with the Times . . . . " He let the sentence trail off, letting her make her own conclusions.

"I see," Sarah answered. "I'm sure that if you call the Times yourself they'll be very pleased to inspect your cellar." She smiled and turned away.

"Miss Smith."

Sarah turned back. Rosini, his dark eyes no longer friendly, held a gun pointed at her.

"I can't let you go after getting you this far, Miss Smith." He gestured toward the doorway.

"I might scream. Everyone else would hear."

"Then I might have nothing to lose by shooting you."

Sarah weighed her chances. Self-defense had never been one of her strong points. Warily she walked through the door, her host stepped back to let her pass. Rosini switched on an overhead light and she entered a bare room with an unfinished ceiling. Boxes and barrels lined the walls. Rosini nodded toward a metal door alone on the far wall. With his graying black hair and well tailored suit all he needed was a wide brimmed hat to make him into the perfect gangster. Or killer.

"What do you really have down here?" she asked.

"A reconstruction of an ancient temple. Well, not quite a reconstruction. It's in fact the genuine article, brought up, as I said, by Mr. Broadstreet." He motioned her across the cool, stone floor to the door which she reluctantly opened. Sarah stepped to the center of the next room.

"Oh no." She turned around in the large, columned stone room. She stood alone and shadowless under a single bare electric bulb. "The Temple of Demnos."

"You - you recognize it," Rosini whispered lowering his weapon. "You know." Never looking away from Sarah, he began to circle around her toward the raised stone alter.

The overhead light went out. Simultaneously, torches blazed into life, illuminating the black cowled apparitions that held them. The followers of Demnos appeared from behind the altar, pillars, doorways. Sarah recognized members of the house staff and even a few people from the tour. The tour guide smiled evilly at her from the shadows under a cowl. The door slammed shut with the finality of a lock clicking home.

* * *

**~~O~~O~~O~~O~~**

* * *

/Steel?/

Steel paused in his visual search of an upstairs closet.

/What?/

/Miss Smith is being attacked./

Steel straightened and disappeared from the upstairs room and rematerialized next to Sapphire in the basement. She waited for him by a gray door, her eyes pointing the way. He placed a hand above the door handle releasing the lock. He then faded and passed through the door.

He stood in the shadows of a torch-lit temple chamber. A crowd of about two dozen black robed humans solemnly watched while four of their number held a resisting Smith to a stone altar at the far end of the room. A red-robed figure wearing a grotesque metal mask presided over the ceremony while another masked human approached with a cup of steaming liquid.

Silently Steel put out the torches, the flames dying quickly in the sudden airlessness immediately about them. He ran across the room and pushed aside the bodies clustered at the altar. He grabbed a forearm and dragged Sarah down the steps. She stumbled in the darkness but he did not slow down, not concerning himself with any mere bruises she might acquire in the rescue.

Reaching the door, he pushed it open and thrust the woman out of the room and towards the stairs. Once outside himself, he relocked the door and froze the mechanism. Muffled shouts came from the door seconds later before it strained from a massed attempt to open it. Having disposed of the immediate technical details, he followed the woman and his partner upstairs. After the three had left, a reddish glow illuminated the crack under the metal door. The shouts increased in volume momentarily before fading away entirely.

* * *

**~~O~~O~~ End Part 1**


	2. Chapter 2

**PATTERNS**

by ardavenport

* * *

**~~O~~O~~ Part 2**

* * *

"Ow," Sitting in a kitchen chair, Sarah nursed a bruised ankle and the sore spot on her arm where Steel had grabbed her. "Thanks for the help." 'I think,' she added to herself.

"What were you doing down there?" he asked her.

"It's what they were doing down there that was the problem."

"We could see what they were doing," Sapphire said sympathetically. She sat down in a chair next to Sarah. "But why would they pick you?"

"Just lucky I suppose." Sarah concentrated on her ankle, not looking at her two benefactors.

"What happened to you in that hallway?" Steel asked abruptly.

Surprised, Sarah jumped. "What?"

"Earlier we saw something happen to you. During the tour when you walked through the hallway with the mosaic floor, you stumbled." Sapphire tried to take the edge off Steel's demand.

"Just clumsy, I suppose."

"No, it was more than that; something made you stumble, pulled at you from the floor."

Sarah swallowed, aghast at the depth of Sapphire's observation. "Who are you two? What are you? Psychics or something?"

"Something." Sapphire didn't explain further. "Can you walk?' Sapphire asked.

"Why?"

"We might find out what happened to you in the hallway."

She stared at one and then the other. "Why not?" Sarah sighed, giving in. She placed both feet on the floor and stood.

The three left the kitchen area and were soon in the hallway.

"Don't step on the mosaic." Sapphire instructed. Sarah stood back from the circular pattern.

"Now what are you going to do?"

"We're going to try to recreate what happened," Steel told her.

Sapphire stepped to the edge of the pattern and lifted her head; her eyes glowed an eerie blue. Sarah gasped when she saw the change but Steel saw nothing unusual.

An image of the room shifted. A shadow of Sarah Jane Smith appeared and crossed the floor. She paused. The colored tiles reached up as if to make the woman an extension of the floor. She freed herself, continued on and disappeared.

The real Sarah backed away from the edge of the mosaic. The uprooted section of floor stayed where it was. It moved, fluctuated and caused other nodules to appear. The voice of a crowd drifted up in the air. The image of Sarah replayed over again and again while the distortion of the floor continued. Some of the colors that tried to hold her gradually formed into a pair of hands while others lifted off the floor like leaves in a wind.

"What's happening?" Sarah asked but Steel apparently didn't hear her in the increasing wind, or he wasn't listening. She continued to back away from rising storm.

Suddenly, a pair of hands reached from the edge of the pattern and whisked Sapphire to the center of the floor. She reached for support but did not lose her balance. Then strangely, she quieted and straightened. Stray bits of color swam about her, the center of a forming cyclone. Sarah saw her eyes widen, their glow intensifying, attentive to some unseen call.

"Sapphire!" Steel plunged forward but was dashed back by the winds. He searched for a way around the chaos, but couldn't even set a foot on the floor pattern. The room boiled with swirling mists and stray triangles of color.

"Steel!" Sapphire reached for him but the howling wind pushed her back to the eye of the storm. Then a pillar of air thickened in front of her. Suddenly a man formed and focused. He held Sapphire's outstretched hands and pulled her out of their center of calm and into the gale. The wind died down, the floor settled but the two still had to struggle to get to a blue police box that had appeared at the edge of the mosaic at the same time as the man. The mist and colors pulled at Sapphire's dress and hair, at the man's frock coat and the long trailing ends of his scarf. Steel followed around the edges of the pattern. Behind him, Miss Smith paused in surprise and then fought the wind to follow. She grabbed on to Steel and he was forced to drag her along. The man with the scarf plowed onward, grabbing the handle of the door to the box and holding a disoriented Sapphire with the other arm, he pushed the door open, thrust Sapphire inside and followed. Steel caught the door before it closed.

The maelstrom was gone. Steel entered a large white room. It's only furnishings were a coat rack and a hexagonal control console. The man from the floor slumped across the controls.

/Sapphire./ Steel approached her from behind and put his hands on her upper arms. She didn't move.

/Steel!/ He sensed terror in her communication. /Steel. We're out of Time!/

/What?/

Behind him Miss Smith recovered from the storm outside. She put her hands to the sides of her head and blinked in the white light.

/This room, Steel. It's out of Time. We're outside Time!/

Steel stood away from her and scanned the room and the closed doors behind him carefully. Then he swung back to the man at the console.

"A Time Lord," he stated coldly. Behind him the human looked up from the controls. "I should have known."

The man shifted his position on the console, his head lifted but his eyes wandered the room without seeing.

/Steel...?/ Sapphire's eyes followed her partner, her initial panic giving way to Steel's calm.

"Doctor!" The woman crossed to the console. He lost his grip and slid off his perch to the floor. Steel glared down at him.

/Steel, do you know what he is? Where we are?/

Miss Smith frantically tried to revive him. She lifted his head to her lap, and getting no response, pleaded to Steel for help.

"He's alive. He doesn't need my help," he snapped back.

/Steel, where are we? What is a Time Lord?/

"But he's hurt!"

Steel stood where he was, offering no assistance. "He'll recover, though he quite probably brought this on himself."

/You're enjoying this, aren't you?/ Sapphire concluded.

"What kind of person are you? He could be dying!"

/You know what this is all about, and I don't./

"Time Lord's don't die. They just regroup into more dangerous forms."

Sapphire, tired of being ignored, took a step toward Steel and nudged him.

"Steel," she persisted.

"He hasn't done anything to you."

"What about the damage he's done here? To Time?"

"He didn't cause this," Sarah retorted.

"How did you get involved with him?" Steel abruptly changed the subject.

"I'm not about to tell you, now am I?"

The Doctor moaned and stirred. His eyes sprang open, wide and unfocused. They shut and opened, blinked. He conspicuously prodded his face with first one hand, then the other.

"It worked," He grinned and tried to rise.

"Doctor!" Sarah caught him when he fell back.

"Sarah!" he exclaimed. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine," she responded, relieved by his recovery. With Sarah's help he managed to get up and stand. "What are you doing here? What happened to you?"

"Yes, we'd all like to hear." Steel glared down at the Time Lord.

"Ah, you're Steel." The Doctor glanced at him and then away.

"I think an explanation of why you used my partner is called for," Steel insisted, no patience in his voice or manner.

"Steel; you know that's a very good name for you." The Doctor evaded, his head still resting in Sarah's lap. "Don't you think so, Sarah?"

"Are you the cause of all the havoc outside?" Steel demanded.

"Not exactly." The Doctor brushed him off again and looked up at his old companion. "Are you sure you're alright?" Steel continued to glare, obviously furious at being ignored.

/Steel./ Sapphire called. /He isn't responsible for what we saw outside. He's a victim of it./

/How do you know?/

"I'm fine, Doctor," Sarah insisted. "But what happened to you? Where did you come from?" She helped him sit up on his own.

/Because I helped him escape from it./

/You helped him?/ Sapphire almost cringed from the reproach she felt. /Why?/

"I've been here all along. I just needed a hand from our two friends here." He rubbed his neck.

/He needed it./

Steel turned his anger back on the Doctor.

"Why are you here?" Steel demanded again. When the Doctor didn't answer immediately he added, "Sapphire helped you, I think that entitles us at least to an explanation."

"There's something rather nasty outside," the Doctor told him seriously.

"We know that, but we don't know what it is," Steel answered.

"Helix energy; it's called the Mandragora."

'The Mandragora,' Sarah repeated to herself. Her thoughts fled to the past, when she and the Doctor had confronted the Mandragora.

_'You know the worse things are the worse your jokes get?' she had accused. Then when she'd realized what she'd said, 'Things are bad aren't they?'_

_'Yes, desperately bad,' he'd answered, deadly serious._

The tone of his voice now sounded frighteningly similar.

"That doesn't tell us anything." Unsatisfied, Steel pressed further. "What is this Mandragora?"

"Astral energy, if you like, concentrated into an intelligent malevolence."

"Astral energy? Then it uses the positions of the stars and planets for its energy source?" Sapphire asked.

"For the most part, but it's more complicated than that."

"Undoubtedly. What is it doing here?" Steel queried.

"We're trying to stop it. To prevent it from doing any more harm." Sapphire entreated when he didn't answer.

"I know." With Sarah's help, the Doctor climbed to his feet.

Sapphire seemed uncomfortable under his gaze as if the Doctor had acquired more information about her than she liked when she had aided him. Steel's glare intensified.

"It was waiting for me," the Time Lord admitted.

Steel began to circle the Doctor.

"Waiting? How long has it been here?"

The Doctor ran a hand through his tangled hair. He faced Sapphire when he answered. "Since the fifteenth century. The Mandragora's followers shipped the whole works up from Italy just to catch me here in England."

"How did it get to Earth?" Sapphire asked.

The Doctor rubbed the back of his neck again and squinted at Sapphire as if she were a bright light. "My TARDIS."

"You brought it here!" Steel accused. "Then you are responsible."

"Yes!" The Doctor whirled and faced off with him.

"Then you left it festering here for five centuries," Steel continued.

"Yes!"

"That was you pulling on Miss Smith here when she crossed that floor for the first time, wasn't it? Trying to drag her in with you?"

"He didn't mean to do that!" Sarah defended, seeing the Doctor being verbally attacked.

"Didn't mean to!" Steel snapped. "And how will that fix the damage he's caused?"

"He's done a lot more good than you seem to be capable of!"

"Good? Is that maelstrom out there a new version of good?" Steel waved an arm demonstratively.

"Listen, are you going to keep arguing with my friend here or do something about our problem?" the Doctor inquired, his attitude clicking into a more cheerful vein.

"Now that we know the cause of all this, we can leave and get on with fixing it." Steel looked about the room and zeroed in on the door. "I presume you have enough control of our present situation to open this."

"I don't think - - "

"You don't think very much, do you?"

"You haven't dealt with the Mandragora before. You don't understand, You'll need my help - -"

"We don't need your help. You've caused enough damage." Steel paused long enough to let his words sink in. Sapphire watched her partner carefully.

The Doctor went to the console and rested a hand on its cool, smooth edge.

"Open this door." Steel demanded.

The Time Lord pulled the proper lever. The doors parted, breaching the walls and dimensions of the console room.

"Come on, Sapphire."

She hesitated, then followed him to the open portal. Just before they reached it, they both faded and vanished. The door closed behind them.

Sarah watched their vanishing exit.

"What are they?" she whispered.

No answer. The Doctor still frowned down at the TARDIS controls.

"Doctor?"

"Hmm? Did you say something?"

"Yes, I said something. What are they?"

"Who?"

"Those two who just left. That Sapphire and Mr. Steel. They just disappeared."

"Oh, they're elementals. I wonder where they got their names?" he puzzled. "Sapphire and steel aren't elements."

Sarah ignored his idle speculations. "But what are they?"

"Time police, if you like. They sort of travel around parts of their time stream, fixing things they find wrong."

"You mean like the TARDIS?"

"Oh no. They don't travel in vortex. Elementals are a bit linear, especially in the way they think. There's not much point in arguing with elementals once they've made up their minds what needs to be done."

"That doesn't tell me very much. What are they doing here?"

"They were probably sent to do something about the Mandragora."

"By who?"

"Oh, that's not important." He brushed the question aside. "The real problem is how I'm going to do anything about the Mandragora with them about."

"We, if you don't mind."

"We?"

Sarah nodded positively.

"You're not going on without me."

"It's very dangerous, Sarah," he told her, sincerely hoping that she would let him handle it alone.

"Not any more than it was the last time. Besides I've just been dragged into this, by you. You're not leaving me out of this now."

"I wasn't responsible for bringing you here in the first place. The Mandragora has a long memory. That whole press conference and the business with opening the house was all made up to get you here." He turned away from her, back to the TARDIS controls. He did not want her there at all, but didn't know how to get her away to safety.

"A trap?" Sarah wondered. "For me? But how do you know that?" Sarah waited for an answer. The Doctor didn't look up at her, didn't move at all. In fact, he seemed frozen, rigid and tensed. Sarah put a hand on his arm. He neither yielded nor reacted to her touch.

"Doctor?"

* * *

**~~O~~O~~ End Part 2**


	3. Chapter 3

**PATTERNS**

by ardavenport

* * *

**~~O~~O~~ Part 3**

* * *

The darkened room was silent and murky. Light came from some unattended electric sources down the hall and far away. The windows were blank as if nothing at all lay beyond them. The TARDIS door opened and Sapphire and Steel appeared before it. The door closed behind them.

"You might have been hasty," Sapphire told her partner.

"The less he gets involved the better."

"He obviously knows about this Mandragora and we don't."

"Are you implying that that Time Lord is more capable of handling this than we are?"

"No. But he is more powerful. And that could be useful."

Steel acknowledged her point with a few moments of silence. Then, "We can't trust him."

"Do we have to?"

"We might."

They separated, paced the room in different directions, warily staying outside of the floor pattern.

You haven't explained to me what a Time Lord is. Or how you know about them."

"You might say that they're one of those things that breaks through Time." With his eyes, Steel examined the floor, it's geometric shapes robbed of their color by the gloom.

"He isn't malevolent. He isn't like us, but he can sense Time. He's substantial, corporeal, but he doesn't belong to any place or Time. Everything else about him was too confused and chaotic for me to understand." Sapphire recounted her brief encounter with the Doctor.

"Appearances can be deceiving. Time Lords travel about in the void outside Time, mostly watching, playing the part of observer regardless of the damage they see. They aren't part of Time; they apparently have no reason to break through it; they apparently have no reason for existing either, yet they do both."

"You've encountered them before, then," she concluded. "Can they be evil?"

"Oh yes, they can be very evil. We'll have to send this one back as well as the Mandragora." He seemed to finish his inspection of the floor and glanced up at his partner as if waiting for her appraisal.

Sapphire stopped and stood very still, as if she were listening for something. "It's quiet now."

"Is it gone?" her partner asked.

"No. Only dormant. It's waiting."

"If it relies on astral energy, then it must require the stars and planets to be in the right position before it can act. That should give us some time." Steel strolled along the edges of the floor pattern. Nothing there responded to his scrutiny. "What does it want here?" he demanded.

"We could have asked," Sapphire pointed out, half turning to the TARDIS.

"And gotten a dubious answer. He can't be trusted, Sapphire."

"If that's the case then we can't be sure of anything we've been told so far."

"We have to start somewhere," he countered and strode out of the room. Sapphire smiled and followed.

* * *

**~~O~~O~~O~~O~~**

* * *

::I am here.::

The Doctor froze and stayed very, very quiet.

::I can find you; I always could.::

The voice grated across his brain along well worn tracks. Eyes wide, the Doctor peered about, trying to zero in on the source. ::You denied me; You destroyed me. But you can't escape me now::

The Doctor straightened and jumped back. Hieronymous had superimposed his image over Sarah standing next to him.

::You mocked me; disputed the power of the Mandragora, but I am supreme in this realm.::

"Not in my TARDIS." he answered.

"What? What are you talking about?" Sarah questioned, obviously unaware of the image. Hieronymous smiled evilly and chuckled.

::You are part of the pattern, Time Lord; you cannot escape the coming of the Mandragora this time.::

"Still the same old megalomaniac? Five hundred years as a disembodied entity just doesn't change some people." He leaned close to confront the phantom. Sarah bent backwards away from him. "And just how do you intend to complete your little plan from inside here?"

Sarah turned to either side, behind her, she even looked up but she saw no one else. The Doctor was intent upon a spot just above her head.

"There's somebody else in here isn't there?" She asked uncertainly.

::You are ours. No one can resist the power of the Mandragora. You are part of our conquest.::

Sarah stepped aside but the Doctor followed, his eyes pointed in her direction.

"But you weren't counting on those two elementals showing up and letting me out of the bag, so to speak."

::They are of no consequence.:: the seer snapped. ::They will be swept away when we destroy mankind. And you will be one of the instruments of that destruction. Even now the Helix pulls; you will be drawn into your place. The power of the Mandragora reaches beyond the walls of this puny refuge.::

"It might, if we were inside the Helix. But it can't reach me inside here when we're on Earth."

::l have other weapons.::

Sarah doubled over, clutching her middle.

"Stop that," the Doctor said ineffectually. Sarah went to her knees and he knelt down beside her. Hieronymous smiled above them.

"I don't think they're listening," she gasped and grabbed onto him for support.  
"Whatever happened to temporal grace?"

"It's not working," he apologized. He had actually cannibalized it several adventures ago to make a neutral room so that the combatants of an interstellar war could negotiate a peace without worrying about killing each other.

Sarah choked on another spasm of pain. "You couldn't fix it now?"

"Not soon enough." Angrily the Doctor's attention returned to her tormentor. "Stop it, Hieronymous," he warned.

Hieronymous waved an arm and Sarah relaxed against him. ::You are ours.::

* * *

**~~O~~O~~O~~O~~**

* * *

"So what happened to them?" Steel prodded the empty robes with his foot. The torches still illuminated the old temple of Demnos. The air smelled of dust and burning charcoal. "Are they dead?" Steel asked. "Were they transported somewhere?"

"They're here," Sapphire said softly from the center of the room.

"Where?"

"In the house."

"Where, Sapphire?"

"Here." She paused, hearing the noise from a rising crowd. She listened but couldn't pick out any single words from the mass voice around her. It got louder.

"Sapphire!" Steel's distinct voice shut off the threatening multitude. She gasped and tilted her head back, relieved of the pressure from the voices.

"They're here Steel," she told him.

"Where, Sapphire?" he repeated.

She stared forward and Steel followed her gaze. The hazy shape of a man stared back at them. His hair was gray and he wore black robes and a gold pendant on a heavy chain about his neck.

"Hello," Sapphire greeted him. He approached cautiously.

"You are . . . . what are you?" he asked uncertainly. He studied them carefully.

"That's not important," Sapphire told him, smiling. "We're here to help. Can you tell us about yourself?"

He straightened. "No. What are you?"

"We're asking the questions," Steel told him.

"You are non-believers," he decided.

"Non-believers in what?"

"Demnos. The Mandragora."

"Why is it here?" Steel demanded. "What does it want?"

The man remained silent.

The lights dimmed to red; the priest faded to an outline. Sapphire drew close to Steel momentarily, before the two turned in opposite directions until they were back to back. Deep throated laughter rumbled from the walls surrounding them. They moved together toward the door but it melted away; a glowing marble temple wall rippled in their path. They backed away and separated. The laughter came again.

* * *

**~~O~~O~~O~~O~~**

* * *

Sarah, her knees drawn up to her chest, arms wrapped around them, sat with her back to the wall. The Doctor reentered the console room. He paused at the controls before going over to Sarah and offering her a styrofoam cup full of tea. She shook her head.

"Oh, go on Sarah." He knelt down beside her. She sighed and accepted. After taking a sip she handed the cup back to him.

"So, now what are we supposed to do?"

"Wait." The Doctor took a sip from his own cup, put it aside with hers and sat down on the floor.

"And?"

"Hmm?" The Doctor looked at her blankly.

"Is that all we're going to do?"

"At the moment that's all we can do."

"It's not like you to give up like this," she berated him. "What about what you did last time, back in Italy?"

He shook his head "I caught the Mandragora by surprise that time. I doubt it would work again." Sarah rested her chin on her arms.

"What are we waiting far?"

"The Mandragora's waiting for its constellation to come into position."

"Of course." They waited in silence for awhile. The Doctor drank the rest of his tea, then pulled out his yoyo and started spinning it up and down. He did very badly with it. Sarah watched his wrist fumbling with the toy; she remembered how thin his arm had felt when she'd grabbed him. She recalled that he had always had a tendency to gain weight, especially around the middle when she'd traveled with him.

Now his pants were too baggy, even for the Doctor, and his vest hung away from his body; it no longer fit. His socks had fallen and she could see the bones and tendons stretched to his ankles where his pant legs had ridden up. His eyes looked down at the yoyo spinning uselessly at the end of its string and his face almost sagged, like he hadn't smiled in weeks, or even years.

"Doctor?"

"Hmm?"

"What happened to you? You said that that thing had you trapped for two years. How?"

"The Mandragora drew the TARDIS off course again. It was waiting for me when I walked out."

"Like it was waiting for me?"

"Hmm." He put the yoyo away and stared down at the floor.

"But what happened to you while it had you trapped?" Sarah persisted. He seemed utterly deflated, like he lacked the initiative to do anything.

"Oh, nothing much." He fumbled in his pocket for something else to distract himself with. His hand closed on a cool, flat ceramic.

"Well, what is that supposed to mean?"

"It means I didn't care for it!" he snapped back at her.

"Sorry." Sarah shrank back. He took his hand out of his pocket and stared at the blue, diamond-shaped tile in his palm.

Sarah leaned forward to have a look. "What's that?" she asked.

"Nothing." His fingers closed over his reflection in the smooth, glassy surface.

"It's not 'nothing." She reached for it but he pulled away.

"Suit yourself," she told him and withdrew her hand. The Doctor settled back while Sarah settled back to watch him.

* * *

**~~O~~O~~O~~O~~**

* * *

Steel firmly gripped Sapphire's hands behind him; they were still back to back, guarding all sides around them. Shapes and figures and times past wandered in and out of sight. Individually each shape was an unconnected event; together they trailed the progress of the Mandragora since its arrival on earth. . . .

. . . . Near the end of the 15th century a Time Lord known as the Doctor fought and defeated the Mandragora in the Italian Dukedom of San Paulo. The event, though dramatic, had no significant effect on history and the whole story soon faded into local legend . . . .

. . . . In the Year 1536 the Duke Josepi, the son of the Duke Giuliano, built a house for his widowed mother. Her new home was a modest 14 room construction whose sole distinguishing feature was that it was built over the buried remains of the old temple of Demnos.

Lady Elisabetta, the Duke's mother, once a beautiful and intelligent woman in her youth, had fallen into frail old age and without her dead husband's faith in the emerging sciences had acquired an impressive set of superstitions. Among the usual beliefs about why comets appeared and when and where warts surfaced, the Lady Elisabetta firmly held that the troubled spirits of the dead walked the earth. Particularly, they walked in her house. She demanded that a priest always accompany her, hung holy relics over every door and window, consulted many expensive mystics about how to keep the dead from stealing her soul and pawning it to the devil.

This conviction and the Lady's resulting strange behavior finally became too much for the Duke. He banished her retinue of astrologers, cleared her house of talismans and forbade her from indulging her fears. A violent argument followed. It ended abruptly when Josepi locked his mother in the part her house that she felt was most strongly haunted. She screamed and raged on long after sunset, but she quieted eventually. The guards set to watch the doors heard nothing more than her weeping the rest of the night.

Duke Josepi won the final argument by default. All he found of his mother the next morning were her clothes . . . .

. . . . In 1647 a wealthy family of Jews bought a home in San Paulo. They were not particularly welcome but no one objected too strongly to their presence since the house they bought was reputed to be haunted. Few inquiries were made when the family disappeared . . . .

. . . . Late in the 1600's a pair of sisters took possession of an abandoned house in San Paulo. Once the place was restored to their liking they invited other 'relatives' of theirs to live with them. They all claimed to be cousins but rumors circulated that they ran a brothel, for many people were seen coming and going late at night. The village shunned them by day but the men still visited at night. But with the years, age reduced their cilentele and work force. In those times the villagers claimed the two remaining sisters were witches and performed satanic rites at the full moon . . . .

. . . . A young girl fled from an amorous soldier on leave from Napoleon's army. She carried a knife and vowed to herself that either one or both of them would die by it before the night was done. She took refuge in a house that had been left vacant after the old man who had lived there had passed away. Neither the girl nor the soldier was seen again . . . .

. . . . In the 1860's a rich, but disturbed young man bought a haven for himself in San Paulo. In the a hundred years he would have been diagnosed as schizophrenic, but in the nineteenth century his social position made him merely eccentric. He claimed to have heard voices at night since childhood. In his new home he added new voices to his own collection . . . .

. . . . In the later half of World War II a small company of soldiers, separated from their unit in heavy fighting, took shelter in an abandoned house near the bombed out village of San Paulo. They were all armed with army issue rifles, pistols, grenades, etc. The U.S. government listed them all as missing in action . . . .

The crowd sounds rose again. Steel looked, listened for an opening to escape through, to even shout through. He and Sapphire were surrounded by darkness and beyond that was the Mandragora's temple. And somewhere in the darkness were all its followers. The ones who had been led to and consumed by its power. He sensed Sapphire, frozen by the din, behind him. He called to her but couldn't get though. Loosing one of her hands he turned, forcing her to face him.

/ - - APPHIRE!/ The remainder of his shout split the sudden quiet.

"Hello?" a woman's voice called from the doorway. Sapphire collapsed, Steel catching her as she fell.

"Pooh!" The newcomer rushed forward to help.

/Sapphire?/

/She's human./ Sapphire reported the pertinent physical details to him.

"Thank-you," Steel responded to the woman while they helped Sapphire up the stairs. "I think it's the dark."

"You don't have to tell me how scary it is down here. I've got first hand experience, believe me."

/...intelligent. I think she might have been the one watching me earlier./

Once out of the temple room, Steel was able to get a better look at her. She was trim and delicately built, but not frail. Her brown hair was cut short and perfectly straight. She was anywhere between 25 and 35 years old and as tall as Sapphire, which meant she was taller than Steel.

They entered the kitchen and sat Sapphire in a chair. The room smelled of stale cookies and punch. Trays of half eaten hors d'oeuvres lay on the counters and the wooden table in the center of the room was covered with cups and crumbs. The woman went to the sink to get a glass of water.

/Why is she still here?/ Steel asked.

/She wasn't part of the ceremony downstairs./

/Then she's real./

/Not necessarily./

"Here you are, dear." The woman handed Sapphire a glass.

"Thank-you."

/But you just said - - /

/She is human. But so were all those other people that we just experienced. They started out as human and their essence still is, but now . . . /

/They're all part of this Mandragora,/ Steel finished.

"Are you feeling better now?" the woman asked.

"Yes, thank you, Miss . . . . ?"

"Alice Jawerski," she answered. "Whatever were you two doing down there?"

"We were ahout to ask you the same question," Steel countered.

She glared back at him, a little surprised by his demanding tone. "If you must know I was looking for someone."

"Who?"

"A friend, and I don't think it's any of your business who it actually is." she folded her arms across her chest.

"It isn't any of your business being here," Steel told her.

"Is he always like this?" Alice addressed Sapphire.

"Only at night," Sapphire answered, sipping her water.

"I don't think you've told me who you two are."

"I'm Sapphire. And this is Steel."

"We're asking the questions."

"Fine," Alice faced Steel again. "I hope you can answer them." She turned and left the kitchen.

"You can't bully her into answering," Sapphire said when he started to follow. "She might not know anything."

"And if she does?"

"Then we won't be able to force her to answer."

Steel considered this train of logic. They left the kitchen together and headed toward the floor room.

They found Alice there. She was near the center of the floor pattern. She stared at the TARDIS with her hands to her mouth. Then, dropping her hands, she rushed up to the door and pounded on it.

"Doctor!" she cried out. She tried opening the door but it was locked.

"Doctor! It's Alice, let me in!" she alternated between pulling on the handle and pounding on the door. After a few minutes though, it became apparent that nobody was coming out.

* * *

**~~O~~O~~ End Part 3**


	4. Chapter 4

**PATTERNS**

by ardavenport

* * *

**~~O~~O~~ Part 4**

* * *

The Doctor puttered with the teapot. He had brought in a teacart loaded with biscuits, crackers, cookies, six different kinds of tea, a self-heating teapot, Italian soda, seltzer bottles, half a fruitcake and a six-pack of diet Pepsi.

"Are you going to fiddle with that all day?" Sarah asked.

"Um."

Sarah took his noncommittal answer as an affirmative. "Hieronymous hasn't made any more appearances, has he?"

"No." He helped himself to some cookies. Sarah watched his hands carefully while he nibbled pink butter stars and then poured an aromatic spiced tea.

"You'll get fat," she told him after his third spoonful of sugar. Then she wondered why she'd said it. Considering how thin he seemed to have gotten, gaining weight was exactly what he needed. He muttered to himself while he stirred. Sarah reached for a biscuit; her hand slipped under the Doctor's cup, tipping it.

"Owww!" he jumped back, away from the hot tea running down his pants.  
Something thumped at the door.

::It's time for you to leave this pitiful haven.:: Hieronymous appeared near the scanner.

"No, I don't think so," The Doctor masked his expression of surprise, picked up a napkin and dabbed at the tea. Sarah could hear a muffled voice mixed in with the noise at the door. The Time Lord knocked over a stack of teacups. They clattered on the floor without breaking.

The seer smiled, his voice silken ::You cannot escape.::

"That's what you said about me getting away from your little floor trap. Tell me, are you still capable of enjoying things like tea?" He poured a fresh, steaming cup. "No? I suppose not." He ignored the noise outside.

"What do you want?" Sarah demanded, able to see the apparition this time.

::Revenge. Don't you want to see who calls, Time Lord?::

"Friends of yours? I don't think so."

Hieronymous continued his tempting ::A friend of yours. She's been waiting a long time for your return.::

The Doctor stayed where he was, but Sarah noticed that the thumping at the door seemed to be having an effect on him, almost as if he were mentally experiencing the blows. He set his jaw and turned away so she couldn't see his face. Sarah looked at the viewer but it wasn't turned on.

"Stop it Hieronymous." He clutched his hands to his ears. "Stop it," he hissed. Sarah bit her lip.

The sound stopped.

* * *

**~~O~~O~~O~~O~~**

* * *

"What do you know about the Mandragora?" Steel's question sounded hollowly across the room. Alice whirled.

"What are you talking about?" She wiped her eyes.

"Why are you here?" Skirting the edges of the mosaic, Steel advanced on her with no sympathy.

"I told you, I'm looking for a friend."

"The Doctor?" Sapphire followed Steel.

"Yes," she answered. "I suppose he's not in." She pulled her sweater closer. "I didn't know you knew him."

"What do you know about the Mandragora?" Steel repeated.

"I don't know anything about the Mandragora, whatever it is," she snapped back.

"Then what were you doing with the Doctor?"

"He's a friend. Just who do you think you are? I helped you two and you've been treating me like a criminal ever since," Alice retorted. "What were you doing with the Doctor?"

The light changed. Blue light spread from the floor tiles. A hand formed and reached for Sapphire's ankle. Steel pulled her away from the edge of the floor pattern. More hands took shape and reached for them from the floor like souls drowning in hell trying to grab a lifeline. Each hand had its own transparent color stretching from the floor. Blue, green, red. Alice cried out and jumped away from the floor. Steel grabbed her and the three hurried from the room.

They entered the library and Steel closed and locked the door on the colors reflected in the hallway.

"What was that?" Alice pulled her sweater close to her body and shivered in spite of the fact that the room temperature had actually gone up. The air was still and slightly stale with humidity.

"The Mandragora," Sapphire told her.

"Oh, Doctor what have you gotten into now," Alice asked no one in particular.

"We're trying to stop that," Steel pointed to the door. "From destroying your world."

"We're trying to help," Sapphire amended.

"Well you could have said so in the first place." She shivered again. "How do we stop that?"

Alice looked at Steel. Sapphire looked at Steel.

"We have to send it back to where it came from."

"How are you going to do that?" Alice persisted.

"We can't send it back the way it came here," Sapphire reminded him.

"I wish the Doctor were here." Alice lamented.

"The Doctor is the one who let it through," Steel told her sharply.

"He couldn't have anything to do with that!"

"He isn't going to have anything to do with it. What do we know about the Mandragora?" Steel asked Sapphire.

"It uses astral energy; it's malevolent toward all mankind."

"How do we know that? What if it's just after this one place or time, those people or maybe it's just after Doctor himself," Steel speculated.

"No, it tried to change history in the fifteenth century. Remember?" she reminded him of their experiences in the temple in the basement. "It finds mankind a threat, so it tried to destroy the beginnings of science. That's what the Doctor prevented."

"But did it try to destroy mankind that time?" Steel continued the analysis. "Or only try to subvert it? What does it really want this time."

"Revenge. It wants revenge now against the Doctor for defeating it. It wants revenge against mankind for the defeat."

"So, this time it does want to destroy." Steel scanned the room, the books lining the wall. "Why are you here?"

Alice jumped, having gotten used to being ignored.

"I keep telling you, I was looking for the Doctor."

"You traveled with him? Like Miss Smith?" Steel asked.

"Yes."

"How did you meet?"

Alice shied away From Sapphire's question. She toyed with a knick-knack on a table.

"I was working in a bookstore. The Doctor came in with some characters from some planet . . . "

"He brought creatures from another planet with him?" Steel was further appalled by the Doctor's exploits.

"He didn't bring them with him. They came after him and started roughing him up. It was all something to do with these things taking over the world. He stopped them. He saved everything that time." Alice put the knick-knack down and moved so that the table and its lamp were between her and the other two people. She fingered the tassels on the lamp shade. The light from below her face accented the least little line or wrinkle on it and made her look ten years older.

"And you helped him. And after that you stayed with him and just traveled around all space and time, is that it?" Steel concluded.

"Yes, as a matter of fact. And what's wrong with that?"

"How did you end up here?"

"We just came here by accident. We landed in that room with the floor. The Doctor said something had thrown the TARDIS off course. So we went out to have a look."

"And then?" Sapphire coaxed her.

The woman swallowed. "And then he wasn't there."

"He just disappeared?" Sapphire stepped closer, continued her questioning while Steel gazed at the wall behind Alice and listened.

"Well, there were flashing lights, they surrounded him and the TARDIS and then, . . . . they just weren't there anymore." She recited her tale as if she were describing a tragic death.

"What did you do?"

"I-I tried to find him, but he wasn't anywhere. And then a security guard found me on the grounds. He gave me a warning and tossed me out. I couldn't get back in, so I went home and waited."

"But he never came."

"No," Alice couldn't look at Sapphire while she talked. She focused on an abstract picture between a couple of bookcases. "I went back to work, but he never came back. I even got arrested once for breaking into this house, but I couldn't find him."

"Then how did you get in this time. Surely the guards would have recognized you."

Alice turned back to her. "I heard they were opening the house to the public, so I got in with all the journalists. They didn't notice me in the crowd."

"Why did you approach Sarah Smith? I saw you talking to her during the reception."

"The Doctor's told me about some of his earlier companions. He'd said that one of them was a journalist named Sarah Jane Smith."

"Why didn't you contact her before?"

"What do you mean?"

"The Doctor left you two years ago. If you knew about one of his companions why didn't you try to contact her before?"

"Do you know how many Smiths there are in bloody Croydon?"

Steel knocked aside the table and the lamp between the two women, interrupting Sapphire's questions. He grabbed Alice and pulled her away from the bookcases. Transparent hands were reaching out from the faintly glowing colored rectangles of the hooks. Steel turned but more bits of color were leaking in under the door. He went for the window, dragging Alice behind him. It was locked and he could see only blackness behind the panes of glass, as dark as if they had been painted over. He kicked it out.

Shouldering his way through the broken glass and dangling slats of wood, he climbed out. The human took a glance back over her shoulder at the creeping bits of light before she let Steel help her through. Sapphire could hear the lights whispering at them as she followed.

They plowed through low bushes, dry branches breaking as they passed. The ground was uneven, the lawn flattened as if beaten down by many feet. Beyond the house the view stretched to a mere thirty feet before fading into blackness. The portals of the house glowed. Lights jostled in the windows, the colors making them look like illuminated stained glass. The sounds of laughter drifted in the air, rising in volume until it suddenly stopped. The lights went out like they were turned off by a switch. Nobody said anything. Not even background noise interrupted the silence.

* * *

**~~O~~O~~O~~O~~**

* * *

"Nos what?" Sarah asked, following the Doctor through the TARDIS hallways.

"You wanted to do something."

"I'd like to know what it is, first."

The Doctor paused at an intersection, consulted his fingers and picked a direction.

"At least tell me where we're going," Sarah chased after him. "What are we supposed to be doing about Hieronymous?"

"We're trying to stop Hieronymous helping the Mandragora to destroy your planet."

"Oh, is that all?" she responded sarcastically. "You wouldn't want to tell me how we're going to do that?" She bumped into his back when he stopped at a door. He held a finger to his lips.

"Wait and see."

He slowly opened the door. It creaked and Sarah smelled dust. Lights came on from a hidden source in the ceiling.

They stood in the doorway of a room cluttered with boxes full of junk. Hat boxes, cardboard boxes, bread boxes, all sitting on rows of red velvet seats in what appeared to be a small theater. A white screen with a long tear down its middle covered the wall at one end of a room decorated with dark green and brown floral wallpaper. The other end of the room was draped with a heavy red curtain. A neon sign in the corner said 'Gents'.

"Ah." The Time Lord seemed quite satisfied with his discovery. "This will do nicely."

He took a step inside and let Sarah in. She passed him and started poking in one of the boxes.

"What is all this?" She held up a bent umbrella and turned back in time to see the door close and hear the lock click. She dropped her find and rushed to the door.

"Doctor!" She pounded on the door with no effect. On the other side the Doctor lowered his head and ran his hand along the door frame. Then he patted the door, straightened and left.

* * *

**~~O~~O~~O~~O~~**

* * *

"We don't have very much time."

"We Never do." Steel opened the door and entered. The others followed. Sapphire and Steel stopped in the center of the entryway. A light still on somewhere upstairs illuminated the room faintly. There wasn't even enough light for shadows.

/They've all gone into hiding. It's almost as if the house was empty./ The same silence outside had followed them in. Nothing living moved around them.

"And the Mandragora?" Steel asked out loud, having absorbed enough silence.

"Its still here. It's nearly time."

The door slammed behind them. Alice smiled shyly when the two elementals whirled to face her.

"Sorry about that," she apologized.

"Alice," Steel addressed her. "You said that the Doctor disappeared on the floor as soon as you two got out of the TARDIS?"

"Yes." She walked towards them, a dark shadow on a less dark background.

"Where were you standing when it happened?"

"By one of the windows."

"Did you try to help him?"

Alice put her hands in the pockets of her sweater. "No, I was too scared. I didn't know what to do."

"He and his TARDIS disappeared," Steel prompted.

She nodded; it was barely discernible in the gloom.

"Come on," he herded her out of the room. "You're going to show us."

They made their way to the hallway. The air in this part of the house was warm and thick and musty. It made the house feel as though it were alive around them.

"Here," Alice took a position by one of the darkened windows, well away from the mosaic. "Are you sure it's safe in here?" she asked.

"No, it is not safe in here, not at all." He scrutinized her and the floor but nothing happened. "What kind of time break is it, Sapphire. How is Time involved?"

"It isn't."

Steel looked up at his partner in surprise.

"It's the Mandragora that's broken through. Time hasn't broken through. The Mandragora has. The astral pattern that it relies on weakens Time and allows it to break through," she explained.

"I never heard the Doctor talk about time like that." Alice interrupted. She crept away from the window and was now standing just behind them.

"We and the Doctor have different perceptions of Time," Steel told her. "What kind of weakness is it, Sapphire. What are we dealing with?"

"It's a construction, as if the Mandragora were building a road for itself. That's how it's breaking through."

"Then this floor is it's 'road'?" Steel asked.

"In a way. But it also uses the pattern to magnify its power, to collect all those people through the years so it would have sufficient energy when its time came."

Steel paused, pondering a new idea. "It relies on astral energy. It needs certain stars and planets in position to act. That's another pattern. Could this floor act as, say, an amplifier to the astral pattern."

"It could."

"Then if we destroy the floor pattern it can't break through." He turned and headed toward the main part of the house. Sapphire followed.

In the kitchen Steel found knives, pots and pans, cooking utensils; all too small for what he wanted. Frustrated, he went to the closets and pulled out mops, a plunger, a portable vacuum cleaner. He handed Sapphire a broom.

"This won't help," Sapphire pointed out.

Steel spied a meat cleaver on a counter. "This might." He hurried from the room. Sapphire discarded the broom before leaving. They found nothing useful in the dining room or the pantry but the study proved a little more promising. Steel hefted a fireplace poker experimentally.

"We need something heavier." He handed the poker and the meat cleaver to his partner and searched about the room. He picked up things and cast them aside until he came across a pair of iron bookends supporting some Punch magazines between them. He took one and let the magazines slide to the floor.

"Where's Alice?" Sapphire asked.

They looked around, but apparently the human had not followed them in their search.

* * *

**~~O~~O~~ End Part 4**


	5. Chapter 5

**PATTERNS**

by ardavenport

* * *

**~~O~~O~~ Part 5**

* * *

Sarah dumped a box of yellow and orange wigs on the floor in frustration. She had gone through 4 rows of boxes without finding anything more formidable than a rubber spear. She went to the box at the end of the next row and kicked it. Its contents clattered onto the floor. Tools. Eagerly, she started going through them.

* * *

**~~O~~O~~O~~O~~**

* * *

Back in the console room the Doctor devoted his attention to the controls.

::Your time approaches.:: The astrologer took a step toward him. He was less transparent, almost solid in appearance this time.

::Your fate awaits you, Timelord.::

"You still haven't gotten over one problem. I'm in here, and fate," he pointed, "is out there."

::You are already undone by your weaknesses. Need I remind you of them?::

The Doctor smiled back and punched a button on the console. The view screen lit up with a confusing collection of boxes and lines.

"You can't use Sarah against me if you can't find her."

::What is this trickery?::

"On Earth they call it the shell game." The boxes and lines squirmed about on the screen. "You're not very familiar with trans-dimensional engineering are you?"

::You cannot conceal her From my wrath!:: Hieronymous faded momentarily, then solidified. The Doctor smiled at the seer's fury.

"It makes it a bit hard to find somebody if all the rooms in my TARDIS keep moving around like that. And you don't know which one Sarah's in either."

::The Mandragora is supreme!:: he raged.

The Doctor cried out and doubled over in pain.

::I will not be cheated.::

"That's not going to work," the Doctor gasped. "It hasn't worked yet." Hieronymous's fury seemed to increase and his victim clutched his head and fell back to the floor.

::I will at least have my vengeance.:: He continued his tortures. But the pain failed to increase; it stayed at an agonizing but constant intensity. In spite of it the Doctor rolled over and climbed to his hands and knees and then his feet. He staggered tc a wall for support.

"You can't kill me, can you Hieronymcus?" he asked through gritted teeth. "It won't let you." Another spasm choked his words. "The Mandragora still needs me. Give it up."

::I will not be denied.:: The seer struggled with his unseen master and then abruptly stopped.

The Doctor dropped to his knees, free from the pain. He rested momentarily, catching his breath.

::I have other means.:: Something was pounding on the outer doors. The Doctor heard a voice calling; it was chillingly familiar. ::Look, Doctor. Look at who waits for you! Look! I command you!::

Hieronymous pointed and a switch clicked on the console. The view screen changed.

The Time Lord turned toward the scanner. He saw a familiar woman in a flowered dress and sweater outside. He turned away.

::She waited for you. Aren't you going to let her in?::

"No! It's a trick!"

::Are you sure?:: The woman on the view screen stood back from the TARDIS and pleaded with the unyielding door.

"Doctor! It's me, Alice!" She wrung her hands in a very familiar way. "I waited for you, I really did. I saw you get caught by this floor. I didn't know what to do. So I went back home and waited. I just knew you weren't dead." The Doctor looked away again.

Was it possible? Had she somehow escaped the Mandragora?

'I just knew you weren't dead'; he remembered her saying that many times before when he'd gotten into trouble. She had always trusted his ability to come out on top, why couldn't she gel out of a tight spot as well?

"She's dead." the Time Lord answered coldly. "It's a trick. It's not going to work, Hieronymcus."

::She awaits you, Doctor.::

Had she survived, somehow been overlooked by the Mandragora and escaped after all?

* * *

**~~O~~O~~O~~O~~**

* * *

Sarah ran into another dead end. She carried a crowbar with which she'd escaped from the theater. But now she found herself-utterly lost in the corridors of the TARDIS.

'What kind of game was the Doctor playing? Did he want to protect her from Hieronymous by hiding her in this maze?' Sarah hefted her crowbar. She wasn't much for being protected when she knew that he Doctor was putting himself at risk. And she didn't like not knowing what was going on.

She resolutely strode down a new corridor.

* * *

**~~O~~O~~O~~O~~**

* * *

"What are you doing here?" Steel demanded. Alice jumped and whirled about. Sapphire and Steel stood in the doorway. "Get away from there," he ordered. Alice was next to the TARDIS. She was standing on the mosaic.

"But I've got to see the Doctor! He's still in trouble and you two haven't teen a whole lot of good!"

"Get away from there." This time Alice complied, stunned by the force of his command. She backed away from the TARDIS, off the floor pattern.

When she was out of the way Steel stepped forward and knelt at the edge of the floor. Without ceremony he brought the heavy iron bookend down on the tiles. Sapphire laid down the meat cleaver, knelt beside him and swung with the poker. But her blows were only enough to cause deep scratches. Her partner was more successful. The floor cracked; chips and bits of tile came loose under his pounding. Still kneeling, he advanced over the wreckage.

/Steel?/

/Follow me Sapphire./

Together, they crept toward the center of the floor. Behind them, the cracks and tiles started to glow.

"Doctor!" Alice nearly screamed and ran to the TARDIS once again. She frantically pounded on the door.

"Get away from there you fool!" Steel ordered, but this time she ignored him.

"Doctor it's starting again! Please, we can't get away from the house and we don't know what to do."

"Steel!" This time there was real fear in Sapphire's call. The colored lights behind them were spreading. They ran about, igniting other parts of the pattern. A spot of blue light darted by Steel. He swung at it with his paperweight and it fractured, splitting into two pieces that raced away in opposite directions. Angrily he bashed even harder.

"It's not working," Sapphire told him.

"It has to! The pattern is the key." He savagely brought the iron weight down on a large red tile, it shattered, losing its color. "It uses the pattern to reflect the astral one and magnify its power. If we destroy the floor that has to diminish its influence." He continued to advance. Sapphire froze.

"It's growing stronger," she repeated. Spots of light were all around them, circling them like sharks. Steel reached the center of the room, rose to his feet and threw the iron weight down. Huge cracks spread out from where he stood, glowing and then flashing like lightning.

Alice screamed.

* * *

**~~O~~O~~O~~O~~**

* * *

Inside the TARDIS the Doctor heard her. He covered his ears.

::If you are to deny us, then she will take your place in the Mandragora's plan!::

"It won't work!"

::But it will" He smiled evilly. ::They will make it possible:: He pointed to the view screen. On the floor the two elementals were surrounded by an encroaching swirl of colors.

Alice screamed again.

This time the Doctor dashed to the console and pulled the door control lever. The TARDIS shook, no longer impervious to the sinister influences outside.

Imprisoned in the Mandragora's trap for two years, the TARDIS had been his anchor. Outside his time machine when caught, he was unable to use it to escape, but he was next to it in his disembodied limbo. He had concentrated on it to shut out as much of the forces around him, keeping himself as separate as possible from the damned souls around him. Not once had he acknowledged them, even when he thought that Alice, his companion, must be among them as well. If she had been caught in the trap, she was utterly lost. But he still had a chance to escape, and stop the Mandragora's conquest with the TARDIS.

Now the door was open. The lights overhead dimmed slightly and the internal sound deep within the TARDIS changed. It sounded like the rumble of many voices. Hieronymous laughed.

* * *

**~~O~~O~~O~~O~~**

* * *

The lights dimmed considerably and Sarah jumped. Something had obviously gone very wrong. But the lighting was brighter down a corridor to Sarah's left, so she followed it, hoping it would lead her out of the maze.

* * *

**~~O~~O~~O~~O~~**

* * *

"Alice!" the Doctor called from the inner doors. He dared not go outside. She heard him over the rising wind and staggered toward him. Steel heard him as well and furiously picked up an object at his feet and threw it at him. The Doctor flinched and it struck the side of the TARDIS at head level. Alice made it to the door and he dragged her inside. Steel staggered toward the time machine.

"Sapphire!" he called, then stopped and turned when she didn't respond. She appeared to be listening to the crowd noises rising from the tiles. Some of the larger colored lights reformed into faces, talking, yelling, screaming at her.

/SAPPHIRE!/ This time she turned and crept toward him. He took a few steps toward her, grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her to her feet.

Inside, the Doctor faced a new dilemma. Should he close the door and shut out the Mandragora and the two elementals as well? Next to him, Alice ran a hand through her short, straight hair (a habit she'd actually picked up from him). She hugged herself, trembled and closed her eyes. He pushed the door level. It couldn't go back all the way; he heard a grinding noise, but the door stayed open.

Hieronymous smiled.

The Time Lord struggled with the control with no result. He dashed out of the console room and returned with a crank to manually close the door. Alice opened her eyes and watched while he vainly fought with the door.

::You are ours.:: Hieronyrmous gloated.

Steel entered, leading Sapphire by the arm. He released his partner and grabbed the Doctor by the collar and hauled him to the center of the room.

"You caused this!"

"Steel!"

Sapphire had backed away from the door. Bits of color were coming in after them.

"Why isn't it working?" Steel demanded of his partner.

"It's the people, Steel. It wasn't the floor that formed the pattern. It was the people that it's collected through the centuries," she told them. "He is part of it. He is the key to the puzzle. The cornerstone to the astral construction. That's why the Mandragora needs him."

"And if we remove the Time Lord?"

"That'll destroy the pattern."

::You cannot stop it!:: For the first time the two elementals faced the mystic from the fifteenth century. ::Mankind will be swept away by the power of Mandragora!::

"Why?" Steel demanded, releasing the Doctor. "Why must it be destroyed?"

::Mankind is destined to become more powerful that the might of the Helix. That cannot be tolerated.:: Hieronymous pointed toward them. ::You are of no consequence. Leave this plane while you can.:: He warned.

"We don't take orders from the likes of you." Steel retorted.

::Then be swept away with this pitiful creature.:: He pointed at the Doctor.

"You haven't won yet, Hieronymous."

Color converged on him and the Time Lord found himself struggling for possession of his own mind.

"Doctor!" Sarah called from the doorway. She ignored the other people in the room and ran to the Doctor. But Steel headed her off. He wrenched the crowbar from her hand and tossed her aside. Then he turned back to the kneeling Doctor.

"Steel, NO!" Sapphire called.

"He's the cornerstone of the pattern, Sapphire. Would you rather sacrifice Mankind for an errant Time Lord?" He raised the crowbar over the Doctor's head.

A bolt of energy struck him from behind. The crowbar went flying and Steel went sailing in the other direction to crash into a wall. Alice, forgotten by the console, lowered her arm. Sapphire, eyes glowing blue, turned to her, but Hieronymous's hand on her shoulder drained the fury from the elemental. She froze, her shoulder stiff and contorted where he touched her.

Alice stepped over and knelt in front of the Doctor.

"I'm sorry, Doctor." She seemed genuinely repentant. "I didn't mean to become part of it. I - I just couldn't help it." The colors shifted and bled out of her dress into the lights that surrounded him and the Doctor knew that she was part of the Mandragora after all and had been all along. He reached out and his hand passed through her chest like air.

"I'm sorry," he apologized back to her. "I never wanted you to get killed."

"I know."

She raised her hand and the Doctor braced for a further attack on his mind. Quickly she turned her hand toward Sarah. Light flew toward her where Steel had left her and she was swiftly drawn to the them.

'No!' the Doctor's mind screamed.

He struggled fiercely, but could scarcely move. Sarah was equally trapped, mute and helpless in an invisible grip. Alice had grown transparent, the colors drained from her except for a pink glow. He could see her eyes, sad as if still asking his forgiveness for falling victim to the Helix. He was drawn up to his feet with Sarah, towards the door. Alice led them without touching, her palms facing them, drawing them forward. The Doctor saw Sarah's face out the corner of his eye. She was as frightened as he had ever seen her, probably more so since she had just walked into the room and had no way of knowing what was going on. He looked back at Alice. All that was left was a monocolor ghost of the girl who died two years ago.

"No. Not again." This time he did break free from the Mandragora long enough to throw Sarah from him. She hit the console and, stunned fell to the floor.

::Fool! You only delay the inevitable.:: A bolt of energy from Hieronymous paralyzed him. The astrologer thrust Sapphire toward him. ::This one will take her place. And then your other companion will be destroyed with this machine of yours and the other spectre.:: Outside, large patches of color had formed into ghostly people, some laughing, others weeping, but all had their arms outstretched to receive him. Alice cried out in anguish and joined them.

The Doctor and Sapphire were forced outside of the TARDIS.

* * *

**~~O~~O~~ End Part 5**


	6. Chapter 6

**PATTERNS**

by ardavenport

* * *

**~~O~~O~~ Part 6**

* * *

Inside the TARDIS Steel lay where he'd been thrown by Alice/the Mandragora. He lay still on his side with his eyes closed. Frost was beginning to form on the floor and wall next to him.

Sarah groaned and rolled over, catching her breath after hitting the ledge of the console in the stomach. She coughed and felt nauseous, but no longer controlled by unseen forces and alive. She rose to her feet and stared hopelessly at the horror outside the TARDIS. Winds and colors swept about crazily, but the phantoms on the floor paid it no heed. The ends of the Doctors scarf, his hair and his coat fluttered wildly. Sapphire's dress whipped tightly about her legs and her hair was as well at the mercy of the changing winds. They kept their place, in the center of the floor. Hieronymous had apparently faded into the ghostly crowd around them.

Steel's eyes opened. He could see what was going on on the view screen. Everything seemed to be in place. The Mandragora's damned victims, the Time Lord and Sapphire, all ready for the final blow. A tearful Sarah Jane Smith watched through the open door. The skylight above the mosaic shattered, showering the room and its occupants with bits of broken glass.

Stiffly, he rose to his feet. Sarah heard him and turned. Stony faced, he ignored her and headed for the door.

She reached for him. "Wait, it's no . . . . "

"Don't touch me." he told her.

He looked deadly. She didn't even ask him what he was up to; it was obvious he wasn't going to tell her. He marched out the TARDIS door into the maelstrom. Mechanically he stepped onto the cracked floor, the gale having little effect on him.

The Doctor cried out. The winds now had a direction. They swept downward, down from the broken skylight and with them came harsh orange light, bits of the Mandragora's full energy seeping in from the astral gap. It assaulted the two in the center of the room, forcing them to their knees. The Doctor stared up at a growing orange glow from above. The air became warm around him. He would be directly in the path of the Helix energy when it burst though to that dimension.

Steel reached the center of the floor. The winds from above rushed down on him, but unlike the Doctor and Sapphire he was undisturbed by it. Hardly a hair on his head was touched. He extended his hands straight in front of him, turned at the waist and grabbed the Doctor's shoulders.

The winds shrieked. The light around the Doctor changed to blue-white, his expression one of profound surprise as he let go of Sapphire when Steel pushed him away. The air made a sound like glass scraping on glass where it struck the floor around him. Bits of tile flew outward.

Orange lightning flew from the glow above them and into the blue-white light. It melted into it and more orange light began pouring from above as if sucked in by an opposite. The air howled. The wind reversed itself, circled the room and back up through the hole in the skylight. The orange light slowed to a stop and also reversed itself. It struggled upward in fiery bits as if it fought an irresistible pull. The sound increased in volume. Then the light snapped away and up back through the skylight and was gone.

Sarah gasped. She ran forward, closer to the open door. The only sounds were the ones she herself made. She stepped outside.

The room was a disaster, littered with bits of broken tile and glass. All the light fixtures had been broken and the windows as well. But Sarah could see the sky, faintly brightened by dawn. She couldn't understand how it could be morning so soon; it seemed to be just a few hours into the night.

She went to the center of the room. "Doctor?" She put a hand on his shoulder; it was ice cold and she pulled her hand back. Her palm tingled and burned where she'd touched him. The Doctor didn't move. His coat was frosted with ice and even his curls were stiff from the cold.

/Don't touch him./

Sarah jumped back when Sapphire 'spoke'. She lay where she had fallen, her eyes staring up at nothing.

"He - he's frozen. what did he do?" she pointed at Steel.

/He stopped the Mandragora. We have to warm them up now. Go and get blankets and a heater; there's one in one of the upstairs bedrooms./

"But what about the Doctor? He's frozen!"

/He's alive, marginally. If you want to help him; do as I said,/ she added crossly.

Still worried, Sarah stood and left.

An hour later Sapphire was able to move and, wrapped in a blanket, she loosed Steel's grasp on the Doctor. She helped Sarah to lower the Doctor, still stiff, to lie on the floor. Sarah put a pillow under his head. Sapphire alone was able to coax Steel to a sitting position. The elemental's hands were at his sides but his fingers were still frozen like claws.

Sarah wiped moisture from the Doctor's face. At first she thought he was sweating and that the electric blanket she put over his shoulders was too warm. But it was only water condensing from the air. He still stared straight ahead, his eyes wide with surprise, the water condensing around them made it look as if he were crying.

"How did he do that?" Sarah asked. "What did he do? "How did he stop the Mandragora?"

"Steel can lower his body temperature to absolute zero. He disrupted the Mandragora's pattern for entering this dimension when he touched the Doctor."

"Absolute zero? That's impossible."

Sapphire didn't respond to the human's disbelief. "It's what he does," she answered.

"And the Mandragora's been stopped? It won't come back?"

"It can't. it's entrance into this world was perfectly timed. All of the astral elements had to be exactly in place for it. It had to withdraw completely to avoid utter disaster."

/It's all gone,/ Sapphire thought to Steel.

/The - the Man-d-dragora?/

/Yes./

/W-we s-s-still have t-to d-deal with th-the T-Time Lord./

Sapphire glanced in his direction and then back to her partner. /He can wait./

"I don't know if he's getting any better," Sarah said uncertainly after another hour. She was very worried about his slow recovery. His body was still very cold to the touch and she could barely find a pulse. And the Doctor had become terribly thin from his two year ordeal. She wondered if that were hurting his chances of recovery.

"He is," Sapphire answered. She looked back at where Steel was sitting. He was as stiff as ever and his eyes were closed. "Do you think he might recover faster in his TARDIS?"

Sarah looked from her to the police box.

"I don't know, I suppose so."

"Perhaps we could find something to carry him with."

"There's bound to be something in the TARDIS. You wouldn't believe the junk he's got in there." Sarah carefully removed the key chain from around the Doctor's neck, went to the TARDIS and opened the door. But when they entered Sapphire hesitated.

"Are you alright?"

"Yes," she smiled faintly. "But, could we leave the door open?"

"I don't see why not." Actually Sarah knew perfectly well that the Doctor hated having the TARDIS door left open. One never knew what might slip in, like a Mandragora. But since she needed Sapphire's help and the two elementals had apparently saved the day Sarah led her past the console room to some storage cupboards. They went through fishing gear, cricket gear, boxing gear, a first aid kit, a gorilla outfit, folding chairs, inflatable pool toys and more. Sapphire was glad that Steel wasn't with her. He would have fits if he saw how many things the Doctor liked to keep around. Finally they came across a folding stretcher and took it outside with them.

/- - phire?/

/Steel?/

Sapphire was appalled. Apparently Steel had been calling her and even with the door open the TARDIS had completely cut him off.

/W-what are you d-doing?/

/We're getting rid of the Time Lord./

"You take his feet. I'll take the head," she told Sarah who unplugged and discarded the electric blanket. Then they both partially dragged, partially lifted him onto the stretcher covered him with the other blankets and took the poles at both ends.

/H-how, Sapphire?/

/Once he is inside this device he will be outside Time. He'll be gone./

/H-he won't b-be gone. H-he can still c-come back./

/What do you want, Steel? Retribution?/

He paused when he heard this rebuke form his partner. The two women lifted the stretcher and went inside the TARDIS again, bumping it on the door frame as they went.

The two women put the stretcher down in the center of the console room. While Sarah knelt by the Doctor, Sapphire stood back.

/He will recover./ She 'spoke' to Sarah without speaking. She wanted her instructions to make the greatest possible impression on the human. /When he does. He must take this device away from here, out of our sphere of influence./

"Why"

/Steel will be waiting for him outside if he chooses not to leave this place./ She didn't smile, didn't explain the threat at all. She turned and vanished, escaping back outside to her own time. After a moment, Sarah stood and closed the door behind her.

Hours later the Doctor stirred. With Sarah's help he rose and shed the encumbering blankets. He almost tripped on the various devices that Sarah had found in the TARDIS to warm him up. Heaters, hot water bottles and more blankets.

He shook his head and refrained from mentioning that he had been dreaming about desserts and flame throwers and bunsen burners. When Sarah told him about Sapphire's warning he looked at the viewer. The two elementals were waiting. Picture perfect, Steel with his arms impatiently folded across his chest; Sapphire sitting quietly in a folding chair that she must have gotten from another part of the house.

"Well, I think they'll understand if we don't stop to say good-bye." He went to the controls and began fiddling with the coordinates.

"Doctor." Sarah approached slowly. "Who was that woman, the one in the flowered dress and sweater?"

The Doctor froze and Sarah knew she had hit a sensitive area. But she had been wondering about this mystery woman ever since she burst into the console room when the Mandragora made its last attack.

"She was at the party before all of this happened. She knew you, didn't she?"

"Yes," He didn't look up at Sarah when he answered. He'd had two years in purgatory to think about the loss of Alice, but now that the incident was truly over he felt like he needed e little more solitude. To think, maybe recover a bit and perhaps not go anywhere for a little while.

"She didn't make it when the Mandragora attacked you when you first came here." Sarah saw the Doctor's shoulders tense when she said this. "Who was she?"

"Her name was Alice." He still didn't look at her when he spoke. Sarah remembered how the Doctor and Alice had apologized to each other for her death. She recalled the many times she thought the Doctor had gotten killed in some misadventure. But she never seriously thought about how he would feel if she were the one to die. She didn't want him to find out.

"I'd like to go home now."

He almost sighed and quickly set the coordinates. "South Crydon?" he asked.

"This time, I hope. The last time you were thirty kilometers off. I had to walk home," she scolded.

"Was I?" he looked up at her with real surprise.

"You were. I'm not wearing walking shoes, this time." She pointed down at her maroon pair of shoes. They matched her outfit, but also had two inch heels. "So, I'm not getting out until we're on my front doorstep."

He grinned and Sarah thought he looked almost normal. "Won't the neighbors object?"

"I'll just tell them you're from out of town." She returned his smile. He manipulated the controls and the time rotor on the console began to move.

Outside, the two elementals waited. No one had disturbed the house that day. When humans eventually investigated the whereabouts of the house's inhabitants they would only find mysteries and no answers about what had happened there.

When the TARDIS noisily dematerialized Sapphire stood.

"Shall we go?" she offered.

Steel, even after a day to think about his partner's solution to the Time Lord problem still locked unhappy.

"He can still return."

"I know." She scrutinized him carefully. "Would you have really killed him to stop the Mandragora?"

"Yes," he answered without hesitation. "If I could."

They turned together and silently vanished from the room.

* * *

**~~O~~O~~ END ~~O~~O~~**

* * *

**Note:** This story was written by me and first appeared under the name 'Anne Davenport' in the print fanzine 'Traveling Companion' #4 in 1989.

**Disclaimer:** All Who and 'Sapphire and Steele' characters and their universes belong to the BBC and/or ATV and/or whoever; I m just playing in their sandbox.


End file.
